The present invention relates to a control device setting method and program, particularly to a method and program for setting, out of a plurality of apparatuses on the network, a group of image forming apparatuses from which an object of control is to be chosen.
In recent years, there has been a widespread use of printing apparatuses such as printers and digital multi-functional peripherals (hereinafter referred to as “image forming apparatuses”). When the image forming apparatus as a network printer is used to perform printing, a document is created by using the document creating application installed in the user terminal linked with the network, and is converted into the print data in the form of PDL (Page Description Language), using the software (printer driver) for controlling the image forming apparatus. Then the data is sent to the image forming apparatus, which analyzes the print data, generates the intermediate data, converts it into bitmap data, and outputs it to a paper medium.
The aforementioned printer driver is normally formed to conform to each image forming apparatus. To ensure output from a plurality of image forming apparatuses linked to the network, a plurality of printer drivers must be installed and this involves complicated work procedures. To solve this problem, a printer driver (hereinafter referred to as “universal printer driver”) has been put into commercial use in recent years, which is compatible with a plurality of image forming apparatuses and capable of selecting an image forming apparatus as the output destination in every execution of a printing job.
Use of the aforementioned universal printer driver ensures that all of the image forming apparatuses over the network can be possible output destinations. However, if there are a large number of image forming apparatuses as possible output destinations, an appropriate image forming apparatus must be selected from among a large number of them. This will involve a complicated work procedure especially for those not fully familiar with the work. Further, in the universal printer driver, output can be made to any image forming apparatus over the network (any image forming apparatus over the network is accessible). Thus, an unauthorized user may access the apparatus, for example, and such security problems may arise. To solve such problems, when a universal printer driver is installed for each user terminal, a group of the image forming apparatuses of permitted output destinations must be set for each user terminal.
For the aforementioned group setting, the Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-181641 discloses an information processing apparatus wherein access restrictions are imposed by sending the group template file containing the user access administration information to other clients. Further, the Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2001-14123 discloses the printer access control system wherein a printer server is used to impose restrictions on access to the printer group for each user.
According to the Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-181641, however, to ensure that the group setting of a certain user is used by another user, the latter user is required to perform the operation of acquiring the group template file with group information described therein. It is not practical to request such complicated operations to be performed by a user not sufficiently familiar with handling the computer. Further, accessibility to all image forming apparatuses is maintained before the group template file is acquired by each user and is set on the universal printer driver. Thus, this technique fails to solve the security management problem.
Further, according to the Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2001-14123, an administration apparatus such as a printer server is required to ensure that the printer server executes restrictions on access for each user. This involves a complicated system structure, and application of this technique to the existing system is accompanied by difficulties.
In view of the problems described above, it is a major object of the present invention to provide a control device setting method and program that ensure simple selection of an apparatus as an output destination.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a control device setting method and program capable of ensuring reliable imposition of access restrictions.